Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Friday said the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) could not find any irregularity in the Delhi government’s expenditure on advertisements.

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Friday said the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) could not find any irregularity in the Delhi government’s expenditure on advertisements.

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Friday said the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) could not find any irregularity in the Delhi government’s expenditure on advertisements.

Sisodia said it would have been better if the central auditor could have considered the expenditure by other state governments on adverts published outside the state.

Sisodia was responding to a calling attention motion in the assembly on the “leak” of the CAG report on government’s ad spend.

The deputy CM said leader of the opposition Vijender Gupta breached the privilege of the House by leaking details of CAG report to the press on Wednesday. The Speaker has referred the matter to the privileges committee.

“I received the report at 5:30 pm on Wednesday but the details were revealed by the opposition leader. This is the first time that a special audit of any department was conducted by the CAG. We welcome it but the scope of audit should have been broadened by including other states to make it comparative,” said Sisodia.

He said the report was with three persons -- the CAG, the Lieutenant Governor and the finance secretary.

“I trust the finance secretary as he gave the report in a sealed envelope. Now, the question is who gave the report to Gupta? Who leaked it to the media? Primarily, this report was supposed to be tabled in the House. Then how did it reach Gupta and the media?” Sisodia said.

“It is a breach of the privileges. There should be action against Vijender Gupta,” he said.

Sisodia said that the report will be tabled and discussed in the assembly.

“The total expenditure is only R 74 crore in 2015-16 against R 526 crore as claimed by opposition and media. We thank the CAG for clearing the air. I have requested CAG to audit Delhi’s health and education department. I have also requested them to audit the expenditure on various schemes by the Modi government,” Sisodia said.

Gupta walked out of the house, alleging the he was not being heard. “The report pointed out that of the total expenditure of R33.40 crore incurred on publicity campaigns, only R4.69 crores pertain to publications in Delhi and R28.71 crores (85%) were spent on publicity in other states/cities,” Gupta had claimed on Wednesday.